A mere five years ago, nobody would have expected his name to be Brock Purdy. The San Francisco 49ers quarterback was one pick away from going undrafted in 2022, and now he stands atop the career leaderboard for the ultimate signal-caller efficiency metric. Purdy threw his 1,500th pass in Monday's 23-17 win, which made him eligible for inclusion in the career passer rating standings and earned him a spot ahead of active surefire Hall of Famers like Lamar Jackson and Aaron Rodgers.
He is also the all-time standard-bearer for success rate and adjusted yards per attempt. Also in the Week 6 victory over the Washington Commanders, Purdy joined elite company with the third-most games with a 110 passer rating or better over the first five seasons of a career. Only Russell Wilson and Patrick Mahomes accumulated more, per Next Gen Stats.
Purdy, a two-time QBR leader, is far from the most physically gifted quarterback in the NFL. But he leads all players in touchdown passes this year with 14 and accounted for the longest completion of the season thus far with an 82-yarder. He might be on his way to the MVP award.
He has been the best player on the best team through six weeks, but his MVP case goes deeper than that; he is the primary reason why the 49ers are Super Bowl favorites. Purdy shed that label — or perhaps instead perfected the art of game management — during his rise as one of the league's preeminent passers. The longer he plays like the most efficient quarterback in NFL history, the more he looks like a steal as the final pick of the 2022 draft.
Purdy will always be known as a former "Mr. Irrelevant," but he is as relevant as anyone in football through six games in 2026. That begs the question of how the 49ers pulled off the biggest steal of the 2022 draft.
What did other teams miss in their evaluation of Purdy? What has San Francisco done to turn him into a star? How has he developed from a fringe prospect into an unstoppable passer?
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